Motor speeds are commonly controlled by the manual movement of a lever connected to the motor's throttle. An operator can physically vary the position of the lever between two extremes to adjust the motor speed from idle to maximum speed and to anything in between. In those cases where the operator is positioned at a point remote from the motor, a control station includes a lever and the lever is connected by a cable to the motor. The cable physically simulates operator control of the remote control lever to provide the desired throttle adjustment.
More recently the cable has been replaced with electronic sensors, typically including a potentiometer connected to the remote control, and a throttle control on the motor that is responsive to the electronic signals generated by the sensor to accordingly vary the throttle setting. Very simply, the lever shaft is mounted on a pivotal shaft that is coupled to the potentiometer shaft whereby rotation of the lever shaft rotates the shaft of the potentiometer. The electronic output of the potentiometer/sensor is directly related to the rotation of its shaft. The throttle control thus receives a varying electronic signal that indicates the rotative position of the lever and controls the speed of the motor in direct relation thereto.
Rather than a lever turning a cable, the lever turns a potentiometer shaft. The lever preferably has its own housing with a shaft that couples to the shaft of the potentiometer/sensor. It is important that the lever is maintained within an established range of rotation and that the shaft that is rotated by the lever is constrained to achieve coupling to the potentiometer shaft but without axial urging or rotative turning beyond the established range for the lever.
To accommodate this criteria, the lever and housing include multiple components including such items (in addition to the shaft and housing) as retention members, stop pins and bearings. Thus, as compared to the prior cable control, the lever control housing for accommodating the electronic sensor is substantially more complex and costly to produce. It is accordingly an objective of the present invention to provide the lever housing (sometimes referred to as the coupling between the lever and the sensor) with a far more simplified structure to substantially reduce the cost without sacrificing performance.